HAMDEN — The Quinnipiac women's basketball team has its destination – Albany, March 9, the MAAC championship game – and is running toward it.

Running up and down the court as the highest-scoring team in the conference. Groups of players running on and off the court as part of a five-in, five-out substitution pattern — the Gold Rush, it's called — as a way to wear out opponents along the way.

The Bobcats haven't slowed down, pushing their record to 27-3 with a blowout victory Thursday night at Rider. They are 19-0 in the MAAC, 14-0 at home and have a 17-game winning streak. One regular season game remains, Sunday at Monmouth, before the next stage of work in an effort to dethrone Marist, MAAC champions for nine years in a row, begins in the conference tournament at the Times Union Center.

"We're skilled enough to do it," said senior forward Samantha Guastella, who averages 13 points and 5.7 rebounds. "We have talent and we're deep. I mean, we have two full teams that can contend with anyone in the MAAC, which we've shown."

Guastella averages a team-high 25 minutes, low for an elite player. Guastella, Val Driscoll, Jasmine Martin, Nikoline Ostergaard and Gillian Abshire have started every game, setting a tone before an entirely different group of five replaces them a few minutes in. The Bobcats come at opponents in waves.

The Gold Rush was the signature style in 2012-13, when Quinnipiac finished 30-3, 18-0 in the Northeast Conference, won the conference tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time. Then it was on to the MAAC, where as a first-year member last season, the Bobcats reached the championship game in Springfield and built a 17-point lead against Marist, which roared back for a 70-66 victory.

That game was March 10, 2014. As much as the Bobcats look ahead to March 9, they look back on that day, that game, that letdown, for motivation. In the Quinnipiac locker room hang two pictures — one of players smiling at halftime, one that captures the sadness in the immediate aftermath.

"That disappointing loss is very fresh as that date gets closer to March," coach Tricia Fabbri said. "That's what we're looking to do — redemption. It's just the disappointment of how a season ends that continues to fuel the next one. What's been so impressive about this group of young ladies is that they're just so focused. They're never too high, too low. It's always been about taking care of business."

It's been big business lately. Quinnipiac is 99-29 in the past four years, 44-11 at home. Overall in 20 seasons, Fabbri, who won two MAAC championships as a player at Fairfield (Class of 1991), is 320-259. Most impressive is that Quinnipiac hit its stride in its final season in the NEC and hasn't dropped off in the more-competitive MAAC.

"It really started with our group coming together when we came in as freshmen and I think we had a similar mentality, which was that we didn't want to just be average, we wanted to be excellent," said Guastella, of Red Bank, N.J. "I think we got the whole team involved with that and everyone was really on the same page. And after our freshman year, losing in the [NEC] semifinals to Monmouth kind of sparked us to be hungry to win a championship our sophomore year. I think that's what happened last year with the loss to Marist, and hopefully this year we're on the same path."

The Gold Rush is again the chosen style. Quinnipiac did not play that way last season and, Fabbri said, perhaps that's why the team faded down the stretch of the championship game to Marist.

"Our strength all year has been the amount of players we play and the minutes they log," said Fabbri, who was raised in Delran, N.J. "Now, we should really have some good legs moving forward."

Said Abshire, who has started all 129 games at point guard since arriving as a freshman from Washington for the 2011-12 season: "It's also helpful because it keeps everyone happy. If everyone is playing, everyone is going to be happy. It grows the camaraderie, the chemistry."

Abshire tied her single-game program record with 14 assists in Thursday's 91-53 victory as the Bobcats posted the third-highest point total and third-largest victory margin in 17 years as a Division I team. She averages 5.9 points and six assists a game. Driscoll averages 13.1 points and 7.9 rebounds. Martin (10.9 points a game) is the third player averaging in double figures, and Ostergaard averages 9.3.

Quinnipiac is outscoring MAAC opponents by an average of 82.5-61.5. Its 21-point average scoring margin leads the conference (Marist, at 6.8, is second). The Bobcats also lead the MAAC in assists (21.3 a game), steals (10.1), three-pointers (9.7), turnover margin (plus-6.8), assist-to-turnover ratio (1.7-to-1) and offensive rebounding (15.5).

Quinnipiac received two votes in the latest Associated Press Top 25 national poll and is No. 7 in the College Insider Mid-Major poll. The Bobcats clinched the top seed for the conference tournament with an 82-52 victory against St. Peter's in the home finale Feb. 20, when seniors were honored.

"They have just elevated this program to unprecedented heights and success in terms of where we are nationally, at a mid-major level," Fabbri said. "Even with the expectation year-to-year growing, and exceeding that expectation, we haven't missed a beat. That's so important. … A lot of good successes along the way [this season], but we still haven't won anything yet. We still have March 9, which we've been looking at for quite a while."